Compared
Limewash vs whitewash vs German smear
Here is the thing nobody leads with: only one of these three is something you buy. Whitewash is a recipe. German smear is a technique. Limewash is a material.
That distinction decides most of the rest, so it is worth getting straight before you pick.
What each one actually is
| Limewash | Whitewash | German smear | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Slaked lime and mineral pigment in water | Usually diluted latex paint | Mortar, troweled and wiped back |
| Product or method | A material you buy | A recipe you mix | A technique |
| How it bonds | Keys in, carbonates, hardens | Sits on top as a film | Bonded mortar |
| Breathable | Yes | No — paint film | Yes |
| Coverage | Translucent, texture reads through | Thin, patchy over time | Heavy, buries some brick |
| Reversible | Distress while curing; weathers well | Strippable, with effort | Effectively permanent |
| Ages by | Hardening for years | Wearing through | Staying put |
Which one for brick
Limewash — if you want the brick to still be brick
Translucent, so colour variation and texture read through. Breathable, which on solid masonry matters more than people realise — moisture that gets into the wall can leave through the finish rather than being trapped behind it.
It is also the most forgiving. You can distress it back while it is curing, and it weathers gracefully over years rather than failing.
German smear — if you want to re-face the wall
Heavier and more textured, burying some bricks while leaving others proud. If that is the look you want, nothing else gets you there.
Understand what you are committing to: it is mortar bonded to brick, it is slow and messy to apply, and it is effectively permanent. Removal is destructive. If there is any chance you will change your mind in five years, that matters.
Whitewash — the one we would steer you away from on brick
Diluted latex is cheap and it looks fine for a season. But it is still a paint film on a wall that needs to breathe, and on solid masonry that can trap moisture behind it.
It also ages badly. Lime hardens over years; thinned paint simply wears through faster than unthinned paint would. You are not saving money, you are deferring the job.
What it costs
Limewash is usually the cheapest of the three once labour is counted. German smear is mortar work — slow, heavy, and expensive to hire out. Whitewash is cheap up front and gets repeated.
A typical brick exterior takes a few five-gallon pails. At $225 a pail — $45 a gallon, shipped free — a whole facade is a manageable number.
If you have landed on limewash
The next question is whose. We compared the main brands on price — ours is $50 a gallon, or $45 in the five-gallon pail, which is roughly 30% below Romabio’s shelf price, with free shipping nationwide and the colour tinted by hand to yours rather than picked off a deck.
It is made by the company that applies these finishes for a living. Every order includes the full application course, and the material carries a lifetime warranty on interior work.
Common questions
What is the difference between limewash and whitewash?
Limewash is slaked lime suspended in water, sometimes with mineral pigment — a genuine mineral finish that carbonates and hardens into the surface. Whitewash, in modern usage, usually means watered-down latex paint, which sits on the surface as a thin film. They look superficially similar when new and behave completely differently over time: lime cures harder for years, diluted paint just wears through faster than undiluted paint would.
What is German smear?
German smear — sometimes called mortar wash or schmear — is a technique rather than a product. Wet mortar is troweled onto brick and partly wiped back while still soft, leaving a heavy, irregular, textured coverage that buries some bricks and leaves others exposed. It is permanent and much thicker than any wash. You are effectively re-facing the brick.
Which is best for brick?
It depends how much brick you want to still see and how reversible you want it. Limewash gives a breathable, translucent finish that lets texture and colour variation read through, and it can be distressed while wet or left to soften naturally. German smear is heavier, more textured and effectively permanent. Whitewash with diluted latex is the one we would steer you away from on brick specifically, because a paint film traps moisture in a wall that needs to breathe.
Is limewash or German smear more expensive?
Limewash is usually cheaper in material and far cheaper in labour. German smear is mortar work — slower, heavier, messier, and much harder to undo if you dislike it. Limewash on a typical brick exterior is a few five-gallon pails, which at $45 a gallon delivered is a manageable number for a whole facade.
Can you undo limewash, whitewash or German smear?
Limewash is the most forgiving — it can be distressed back while curing, and over years it weathers gracefully rather than failing. Whitewash in diluted latex can be stripped, with effort, like any paint. German smear is mortar bonded to brick and is effectively permanent; removing it is destructive. If there is any chance you will change your mind, that ordering matters.
Does limewash let brick breathe?
Yes, and it is the main technical argument for it on masonry. Lime is vapour permeable, so moisture that gets into a wall can leave through the finish. A latex film does not breathe in the same way, which on a solid masonry wall can trap moisture behind the paint. This is why lime has been used on brick and stone for centuries and why it is still the right answer on historic masonry.
Which one should I actually buy?
Note that only one of the three is something you buy. Whitewash is a recipe you mix from paint, and German smear is a technique using mortar. Limewash is the only one of the three that is a material — which is why, if you want the lime look with breathability and a finish that hardens over time, the question is really which limewash. Ours is $50 a gallon, $45 in the five-gallon pail, shipped free.
The real difference between limewash and paint
It is not the look. It is what you are breathing for the next ten years.
Paint is pigment suspended in a synthetic binder, and that binder has to stay liquid in the tin and then harden on your wall. The chemistry that makes that possible is the chemistry that leaves the wall afterwards — into the room.
“Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors.”
US Environmental Protection Agency — Volatile Organic Compounds’ Impact on Indoor Air Quality
The EPA names the sources plainly — “paints, varnishes and wax all contain organic solvents”, alongside paint strippers and other solvents. And the spike during the work itself is not a rounding error:
“During and for several hours immediately after certain activities, such as paint stripping, levels may be 1,000 times background outdoor levels.”
EPA — VOCs’ Impact on Indoor Air Quality
What that exposure is associated with, again in the EPA’s own words: “eye, nose and throat irritation; headaches, loss of coordination and nausea; damage to liver, kidney and central nervous system” — and that “some organics can cause cancer in animals, some are suspected or known to cause cancer in humans.”
Read it yourself
We would rather you checked than took our word for it. These are the primary sources, not somebody’s summary of them.
- EPA — Volatile Organic Compounds’ Impact on Indoor Air QualityThe ten-times figure, the source list, the 1,000× spike and the health effects.
- EPA — Technical Overview of Volatile Organic CompoundsHow VOCs are defined and regulated — and why “low-VOC” on a tin is a narrower claim than it sounds.
- Indoor Airborne VOCs from Water-Based Coatings: Transfer Dynamics and Health ImplicationsPeer-reviewed, open access. Water-based does not mean VOC-free, and this is the work that shows why.
- Yearlong study of indoor VOC variabilityPeer-reviewed. How indoor VOC exposure behaves across a whole year, not just on painting day.
Limewash has none of it
High-calcium lime, mineral pigment, purified aggregates, water. No synthetic binder, because lime does not need one — it hardens by reacting with the air, not by a solvent leaving the film.
Nothing in the tin has to evaporate out of your wall, so there is nothing to off-gas. This is not a reformulated low-VOC version of a solvent product. It is a material that never had solvents in it to begin with.
Two ways to get it out of your house
Do a room yourself. The White House Blend™ is $50 a gallon, $225 for the five-gallon pail, shipped free anywhere in the United States and tinted by hand to your colour — with the full application course included and a lifetime warranty on the material for interior work.
Or do the whole house. The Zero VOC Home Program measures the VOC levels in your home, transitions every painted wall and ceiling to zero-VOC limewash, then measures again — so you see the difference rather than take it on faith. From $85 a month.
Who we are
Thirty seconds, then stay for the podcast.
I’m Ben Lynch. I started LimeWash Pros after reading what the EPA had published about the air inside ordinary American houses — and realizing the walls were the problem.
Meet LimeWash Pros
Who we are, what lime does that paint cannot, and why the air inside your house is the reason we do this.
The podcast
11:33From Setback to Limewash Success: Meet Ben Lynch
Why I walked away from conventional paint, what I found in the research on VOCs, and how that turned into LimeWash Pros.
12:10How Modern Paint is Killing You
The VOCs in ordinary latex paint don’t stop off-gassing when the wall dries. What that does to the air in your house.
9:43The Carcinogen On Your Walls
Benzene is a known human carcinogen and it is in the paint on every surface of your home. What the research says.